Colusa County
Biographies
MICHAEL BILLIOU
Michael Billiou is a native of St. Louis County, Missouri, born September 7, 1832. His father had settled in this region previous to the cession of the country west of the Mississippi to the United States. Michael lived on his father’s farm till he was twenty years of age and then set out for California. He arrived in Colusa County in the fall of 1852, without a dollar in his pocket, offering to work for his board, yet for a time failed to find employment. He was finally hired by Richard J. Walsh, to work on the Capay grant, where he was steadily occupied for ten years. With the sum of money accumulated in these years of diligent toil, Mr. Billiou purchased the property on which he now resides, consisting of seven hundred and fifty acres of land on Stony Creek. Here he farms, raises stock and grows fruits. He is much interested in fruit culture. Twenty-five orange trees which were at first planted as ornaments in his garden have grown thrifty and produce abundantly, while in his orchard is a variety of all kinds of fruits. His vineyard, likewise, shows what care and judgment can accomplish. His residence, which was built in 1878, is a large and handsome structure, and, standing on a chosen spot, surrounded by orange and other fruit trees, it is as welcome to the eye of the traveler as the heart and habits of its owner are hospitable.
Mr. Billiou never married, but his domestic affairs are superintended by his mother and his sister Mary. His aged mother was, before marriage, Mary O’Connell, born February 12, 1813, in St. Louis County, Missouri, within twelve miles of the old court-house, an historic spot for thousands who pushed the line of settlement northward into the prairie States of the middle West. Mr. Billiou’s early residence on his place was not without its adventures. He recalls the devastations among stock committed by bears over thirty years ago. In 1854 he caught a grizzly in a trap a few hundred yards from the Walsh residence. He shot it and it weighed nine hundred pounds. He caught the monster in a trap that weighed seventy-five pounds. Though the trap was fastened to a heavy oak log, his bear-ship dragged the log, trap and all some distance till they got tangled in the brush.
Since making his home here, Mr. Billiou made one trip East, in 1876, to his former home, in St. Louis, and also visited the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia.
“Colusa County” – by Justus H. Rogers – Orland, CA – 1891 – pp 376-377
RICHARD J. WALSH – by W. S. Green
My information of Richard Walsh before he came to Colusa County is meager. He was born in County Kildare, Ireland, May 10, 1820. He came to the United States in 1842, and visited first at New Orleans, and from thence to St. Louis. On the breaking out of the gold fever in 1849, he started across the plains among the first. When he got to Green River, he saw a splendid opportunity for the establishment of a ferry. He ran this ferry until most of the emigrants of that year had passed and brought up the rear for California. I knew Richard Walsh first as a Shasta merchant and a shipper of goods by teams through Colusa, and he was among the first to load a boat, the “Benicia”, in 1851 for Colusa. While engaged in teaming, he found it convenient to establish a “ranch” on the route, on which to keep his stock in winter, and rest up such as might be tired out, and he built a house on the river just above St. John. This was as early, I think, as the spring of 1851. Very shortly after this he bought cattle, and commenced to raise stock for the market. He was also among the first in the valley to grow barley and wheat for a business. Soon he concentrated all his interests at this point, and went to Kentucky and brought out some fine short-horn cattle, being the pioneer in that business in the State. As a consequence, he took the premium on cattle at all the earlier State fairs. He did as much as any other man to build up the State fair. The land around him was purchased as it was offered for sale, until at his death, he was the owner of some twenty thousand acres of the best land in the State. This was left to his wife during her life-time, and then to his sister, Mrs. Chambers, of St. Louis County, Missouri, and her two sons, Joseph L. and Charles D. They own it yet. As a merchant, as a farmer, and in every relation in life, Richard Walsh built up a reputation for honesty, and all the high moral virtues second to no man who has stepped on the soil of California. At the time of his death, his word would have been taken for any amount of money he would name by any resident of the Sacramento Valley. In physique he was the model man. Being physically and mentally strong, his energy knew no bounds. He never took hold of any business with an idea of the probability of failure. In his likes and dislikes he was positive. He was half-way nothing, and as a consequence he believed in and practiced the teachings of the church to which he belonged, with his whole heart. He died April 30, 1866.
“Colusa County” – by Justus H. Rogers – Orland, CA – 1891 – pp 376-377